Murad let the unspoken question hang in the air.

"We go where we are sent, Lord Murad. We are all servants, we wearers of the black robe."

"Ah, so you were sent to join us?"

"No. I have used that word clumsily. You must excuse me."

"Either you were sent or you were not, Father. Do have some more brandy, by the way."

Murad poured the cleric more of the Fimbrian whilst his two ensigns looked on like spectators at a gladiatorial contest. Sequero seemed amused and fascinated, but Murad was surprised to see a look of downright terror on di Souza's face.

"Are you all right, Valdan?" he asked at once. "A touch of seasickness, perhaps?"

The straw-haired officer shook his head. He was like a man going to the gallows.

"As I was saying," Murad said smoothly, turning to the cleric, "either you were sent, Father, or you came of your own accord. Or someone asked you to join our company."

Here he stared back at di Souza, reading the young man's suffused face and letting his last sentence hang in the air.

"I asked him to come!" di Souza blurted out. "It was me, sir-my idea alone. The soldiers wanted a chaplain. I asked Father Ortelius. I thought I did right, sir, upon mine honour!"

Murad glanced around the table. Ortelius was delicately wiping his lips with a napkin, eyes cast down and countenance serene once again. Sequero's face was wooden, as if he feared to be a.s.sociated with di Souza's guilt by his proximity to his brother officer.

Murad laughed. "Well, why did you not say so?" He stood up. "I am sorry to have tried your patience thus these last few days, Father. Please forgive me." And he bent to kiss the priest's knuckle.

Ortelius beamed. "That is quite all right, my son."

"And with this revelation I am afraid I must end our delightful evening, gentlemen. I would like to retire.

Good night, Father. I hope you have a pleasant sleep. Sequero, good evening. You will see Father Ortelius to his hammock, I am sure. Ensign di Souza, stay behind a moment, if you please."

When the other two had left di Souza sat stiffly in his chair with his hands in his lap.

"Talk to me, Ensign," Murad said softly.The younger man's slab-like face was shining with sweat. His skin was red with wine and heat, contrasting vividly with his yellow hair.

"The men did not like the idea of sailing without a chaplain, as I said once before to you sir, I think."

"Did Mensurado put you up to this?" Murad interrupted.

"No, sir! It was my idea alone." Had di Souza placed the blame on his sergeant, Mensurado, Murad would have been forced to have the man strappadoed, or perhaps shot. And Mensurado was the most experienced soldier on the ship.

"How well do you know this Ortelius?"

Di Souza's eyes flickered up and met Murad's steady glare for a second. He seemed to shrink in his chair.

"Not well, sir. I know he was once on the staff of the Prelate of Hebrion, and is well thought of in the order."

"And why should such a distinguished cleric take ship with an expedition into the unknown and with such travelling companions, eh?"

Di Souza shrugged helplessly. "He is a priest. It is his job. When he shrove me before we took ship he seemed to know about the voyage. He asked if I was at ease at the thought of undertaking it with no spiritual guide. I was not, sir-I tell the truth. He volunteered to come, but I thought he was only trying to comfort my wretched soul. I did not think he truly meant what he said."

"You have a lot to learn, Valdan," Murad said. "Ortelius is a spy in the pay of Himerius the Prelate of Hebrion. He has come along to see what the King is up to, commissioning this expedition, and with such pa.s.sengers. But no matter. I know him now for what he is, and can deal with him accordingly."

"Sir! You're not going to-"

"Shut up, Valdan. You are a stupid young fool. I could have you stripped of rank and put in irons for the rest of the voyage for what you have taken upon yourself to do. But I need you. I will tell you one thing you had best remember, though."

Murad leaned close until he could smell the brandy on his subordinate's breath.

"Your loyalty will be to me, and no one else. Not to the Church, not to a priest, not to your own mother.

You will look to me for everything. If you do not your career is over, and mayhap your life as well. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," di Souza croaked.

Murad smiled. "I am glad you understand. You are dismissed."

The ensign got up out of his chair like an arthritic man, saluted and then bolted out of the door. Murad sat down in his own chair and propped his feet on the table. He turned his head to stare out aft at the ship's wake. No sign of land. The Hebrionese were already out of sight, which meant they were at last truly in the Great Western Ocean.

And no one can touch us, Murad thought. Not kings, not priests, not the machinations of government.

Until one of these ships returns, we are alone and no one can find us.He remembered the log of Tyrenius Cobrian, the dark story of slaughter and madness that it told, and felt a chill of unease.

"Wine!" he called loudly.

When he turned back from his contemplation of the stern windows he found that the wine was already on the table, glowing as red as blood in its decanter with one remaining table lantern burning behind it.

The girl, Griella. She stood in the shadows. He knew her by the absurd breeches she wore, the bob of hair. And the peculiar shine of her eyes which always reminded him of a beast's seen by torchlight.

Murad was momentarily startled by her silent presence; he had not heard a sound. He poured himself some of the luminous wine.

"Come into the light, girl. I won't bite you."

She moved forward, and her eyes became human again. She regarded him with a detached interest that never failed to infuriate him. He had to bed her, impress his presence and superiority upon her. Her skin had a kind of light about it, emphasized by the lantern. In the neck of her shirt he could see the swell of one slight breast, that curve of light and shadow.

"Take off my boots," he said brusquely.

She did as she was bidden, kneeling before him and slipping the long sea boots off his legs with a strength that surprised him. He could see down the neck of her shirt. He sipped wine steadily.

"You will share my bed tonight," he said.

She stared at him.

"There will be no excuses. The blood will have stopped by now, and if it has not I care not. Stand up."

She did so.

"Why do you not speak? Have you nothing to say? A few nights ago you were as livid as a cat. Have you reconciled yourself to your newfound station? Speak to me!"

Griella watched him, a small smile turning up one corner of her mouth.

"You are a n.o.ble," she said. "On this ship your word is the law. I have no choice."

"That's right," he sneered. "Has your ageing guardian been talking some sense into your pretty little head, then?"

"Yes, he has."

"A wise man, obviously." Why did he feel that she was getting the better of him, that she was secretly laughing at him? He wanted to kiss that smile off her ripe young mouth, bruise it away with his teeth.

"Remove your clothes," he said. He drank more wine. His heartbeat was beginning to become an audible thing, hammering in his temples.

She slipped her shirt off over her head, then unfastened her belt and let her breeches slip to the deck. As she stood before him naked he distinctly heard the ship's bell being struck eight times. Eight bells in the first watch. Midnight. It was like a warning.Murad stood up, towering over her. She was golden in the lantern light before his shadow covered her.

He brushed her nipples and heard the breath sucked down her throat. He grinned, happy at having punctured her weird composure. Then he bent his head and crushed his mouth on hers.

A FTERWARDS, he remembered how slight she had seemed in his arms, how slim and hard and alive.

She was taut with muscle, every nerve jumping on the surface of her skin.

She had been virgin, too, but had not cried out as he entered her, merely flinching for a second. He remembered the hot, liquid sensation, the way he pressed her down into the blankets and bit at her neck and shoulder, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She had lain quiet under him until something kindled her. Unwillingly she had moved and begun to make small sounds. Then the coupling had transformed into a battle, a fight for mastery. Joined together, their bodies had struggled against one another until her scream had rung out and she had scissored her legs about him and wept furiously in the darkness. They had slept after that, spent, their bodies glued together by sweat and the fluid of their exertions. It had been strangely peaceful, like the truce after two armies had battled each other into exhaustion.

He had woken in the dark hour before the dawn-or thought he had. He could not breathe. He was suffocating in a baking, furnace heat and his lungs were being constricted by a crippling weight.

Something huge and heavy was lying atop him, pinioning his limbs. He had opened his eyes, feeling hot breath on his face, and had seen two yellow lights regarding him from six inches away. The cold gleam of teeth. A vague impression of two horn-like ears arcing up from a broad, black-furred skull. And the paralysing heat and weight of it on his body.

He had pa.s.sed out, or the dream had faded. He woke later, after sunrise, with a scream on his lips-but found himself alone in the gently swaying cot, sunlight streaming in the stern windows, a patch of blood on the blankets. He drew in shuddering breaths. A dream or nightmare, nothing more. It could be nothing more.

He swung off the cot on to rubber legs. The ship was rolling more heavily, the bow rising and falling. He could see white-topped waves breaking in the swell beyond the windows.

It took the last pint in the wine decanter to quell the trembling in his hands, to wipe out the horror of the dream. When it had faded all he could remember was the taut joy of her under him, the unwilling surrender. Strangely, he did not feel triumphant at the memory, but quickened, somehow invigorated.

By the time he had broken his fast, he had forgotten the vision of the night entirely. Too much brandy and wine, perhaps. All he could think of was the slim girl and her bright eyes, the taut joy of her under him.

He hungered for more.

SIXTEEN.

T HE Merduk army was on the move.

It had taken time; far too much time, Shahr Baraz thought. Aekir had damaged them more than they had cared to admit at the time, but now many of their losses had been made good. Fresh troops had been sent through the Thurian pa.s.ses before the snows closed them for the winter, and Maghreb, Sultan of Danrimir, had sent fifty elephants and eight thousand of his personal guard to join the taking of Ormann d.y.k.e. It was a gesture as much as anything else, with the inevitable political ramifications behind it. The other sultans had sat up quickly when Aekir had fallen, and soon the scramble for the spoils would begin.

Shahr Baraz had heard camp rumours that ancient Nalbeni, not to be outdone by its northern rival, had commissioned a fleet of troop transports to cross the Kardian Sea and fall on the southern coastal citiesof Torunna. That snippet made him smile. With luck, it had already reached the ears of the Torunnan king and might make him detach troops from the north.

Shahr Baraz had no illusions as to the difficulty of the task before him. He had maps of the fortress complex, made by the troopers of the countless armed reconnaissances he had sent west. The Fimbrians had first built the d.y.k.e, and as with everything they constructed it had been built to last. His distant ancestors had attacked it once, way back in the mists of tribal memory when it had marked the boundary of the Fimbrian Empire. They had died in their screaming thousands, it was said, and their bodies had filled to the brim the d.y.k.e itself.

But that was then. This was now. One of the reasons the Merduk advance had been so slow to recommence after the fall of Aekir was because he had had his engineers at work day and night. The results of their labour had been dismantled and loaded on to gargantuan waggons, each pulled by four elephants. Now he had everything he needed: siege-towers, catapults, ballistae. And boats. Many boats.

He sat on his horse on a low muddy hill with a gaggle of staff officers about him and his bodyguard in silent ranks on the slope below. He watched his army trudging past.

Outriders on the flanks, squadrons of light cavalry armed with lances and wearing only leather cuir boulli , something they had picked up from the Ramusians. Then the main vanguard, a picked force of the Hraibadar, the shock-troops who specialized in a.s.saults, breachings and, if necessary, last stands. Their ranks were thinner than they had been-so many had fallen at Aekir that he was pressed to field more than ten regiments of them, scarcely twelve thousand men.

Trundling through their ranks were the dotted bulk of elephants. Only a score of them travelled with the van, and each pulled a train of light waggons loaded with provisions. The vanguard was Shahr Baraz's most mobile force, and his most hard-hitting. It would spearhead the final a.s.sault, once he had softened the d.y.k.e up a little.

At the rear of the van, a brigade of heavy cavalry, what the Ramusians called cuira.s.siers. They were known as Ferinai to his own people, who had specialized in their use for generations. They wore chainmail reinforced with glittering plates of steel, and their faces were covered by tall helms. In addition to their swords they each carried a pair of matchlock pistols, a recent innovation that the Ferinai had accepted only with much grumbling. These were the best troops that Shahr Baraz possessed; his own bodyguard had been picked mainly from their ranks. They were professional soldiers, unlike the majority of the army, and their general was as n.i.g.g.ardly with them as a miser with his gold.

The van pa.s.sed by, almost twenty thousand strong, and as Shahr Baraz calmed his restless horse, the main body came up. Here the discipline was not so rigid. Men waved and cheered at him as they marched past and he nodded curtly in reply. These were the Minhraib, the common footsoldiers who when not at war were small farmers, tradesmen, peasants or laborers. A hundred thousand strong, they marched in a column whose head was fifty men wide, and it extended for over three and a half miles. It would take an hour and a half at least for them to pa.s.s by their general in their entirety. The sight of them made Shahr Baraz stiffen, and he raised his old eyes to heaven in a moment's prayer, thanking his G.o.d and his Prophet that he had been given the chance to see this, to command this: the largest army ever fielded by an eastern sultanate. Its like had not been seen on the continent since the terrible wars of the Ramusians, when they had fought among themselves to bring down the Fimbrian Hegemony.

He would not wait to view the rearguard or the siege train; they were seven miles down the road. When the van went into camp that night, the rearguard would be ten miles behind them. Such was the logistical nightmare of moving an army this size across country.Still, he had the Ostian river now. Already the first barges had come downstream from Ostrabar and the supplies were building up on the burnt wharves of Aekir's riverfront. Incredible, the amount of supplies an army of this size needed. The elephants alone required eighty tons of forage daily.

"Have you spoken to the chief of engineers about the road?" he asked an aide crisply.

The aide started in the saddle. The old man's eyes had seemed so vacant, so far away, that he had thought his general was in some sort of tired daze.

"Yes, Khedive. The materials are already on the road. Once the army is in position about the d.y.k.e, the work will go on apace. We have rounded up some thirty thousand head of labour from the countryside.

The new road will, the engineer tells me, be finished in sixteen days. And it will bear the elephant waggons."

"Excellent," Shahr Baraz said, and stroked the silver-white moustache that fell past his chin in two tusk-like lengths. His black eyes glittered between their almond-shaped lids.

"Read me again that dispatch from Jaffan at the d.y.k.e."

The aide fumbled in a saddlebag and produced a piece of parchment. He squinted at it intently for a moment, making the old man's eyes narrow with humour. Officers had to learn to read and write before being seconded to his staff. For many it was an arcane ch.o.r.e that did not come naturally.

"He says," the aide reported haltingly, "that . . . that the refugees are all across the river and encamped about the fortress, but the-the bridges have not yet been cut. Ramusian forces are making sorties east of the river, harrying his troops. He wants more men." Finished, the aide blinked rapidly, relief on his face.

"He will have sixscore thousand of them in his lap soon enough," Shahr Baraz said casually, his eyes still fixed on the unending files of men and horses and waggons that were moving west. "I want another dispatch sent to Jaffan," he went on, ignoring the sudden rustle of paper and scratch of quill. "The usual greetings, et cetera.

"Your orders are changed. You are to cease the harrying of Ramusian forces east of the river and concentrate on reconnaissance of the enemy position. You will send squadrons to north and south of the d.y.k.e looking for fords or possible bridging points. The eastern bank will be reconnoitered for at least ten leagues on either side of the d.y.k.e. At the same time you will, using whatever means necessary, ascertain the strength of the fortress garrison and find out how many men have been detached for service further west. You will also confirm or deny the constant rumour I have been hearing that the head of the Ramusian Church did not die in Aekir but is alive and well in Ormann d.y.k.e.

"May the Prophet Ahrimuz watch over you in your endeavours and the enlightenment of the true faith constantly illuminate your path. I and my forces will relieve you within a week. Shahr Baraz, High Khedive of the Armies of the Sultanate of Ostrabar. Et cetera . . . Did you get that, Ormun?"

The aide was scribbling frantically, using his broad pommel as a writing desk.

"Yes, Khedive."

"Good. Get it off to the d.y.k.e at once."

Ormun galloped away as soon as Shahr Baraz had inscribed his flowing signature on the parchment with elaborate flourishes of the quill."An enthusiastic young man," he noted to Mughal, one of his senior officers.

The other man nodded, the horsehair plume atop his helm bobbing as he did. "You are a legend of sorts to them, the young men."

"Surely not."